The Cabinet’s announcement yesterday “unreservedly rejecting” Egypt’s latest proposals for the West Bank and Gaza Strip was intended, according to Cabinet sources, principally to demonstrate Israel’s firmness in the face of expected pressures in the near future.
The announcement gave thumbs down on the Egyptian proposals even before they had been formally submitted to the U.S. at to Israel–an unusual procedure. The Cabinet reacted to Cairo radio reports on the evolving Egyptian plan which calls for the return of the West Bank and Gaza to Egypt for an interim period until the eventual determination of their future and the negotiation of Israel’s “security problems” during that interim period. The Cabinet, at Premier Menachem Begin’s insistance and without a vote, rejected these ideas as a “precondition” since they demanded eventual of the areas before negotiation of Israel’s “security problems.”
Cabinet sources explained that the Egyptian ideas had been evolving for a period of weeks and had been expressed by President Anwar Sadat on several occasions in recent days. Israel decided to speak out forcefully against them, the sources said, before they tock hold of Western public opinion because Israel found them completely unacceptable as a basis for resumed negotiations.
The sources referred to Vice President Walter Mondale’s visit here this weekend as the likely harbinger of a renewed American effort to get the peace process moving. They said the Cabinet deliberately wanted to put its categorical position on record before Mondale’s arrival here.
U.S. officials themselves now concede that the Mondale trip will be more than the mere “ceremonial” occasion it was originally labeled. Some observers here expect it to mark the start of an energetic American effort to speed up the momentum. Therefore they recommend that the Israel government brace itself for some tough talk from Mondale, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, and other top U.S. officials.
There is no official word here yet regarding the prospect of a tripartite meeting of Foreign Ministers in London in mid-July, a possibility reported from Washington and from Cairo. But privately, officials expect Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan to receive an invitation soon to go to London and meet there with Vance and Egypt’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Kaamel as a first move towards resumption of the stalled negotiations.
Some observers here believe Vance chose the London venue in order to involve the British government and other European Common Market nations in the U.S. effort to get the two Mideast protagonists back to the negotiating table.
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